Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I may ask a couple of questions. Then I'll pass it over to Mr. Lehoux if he has a couple of others.
Minister, thank you for getting back to us when we had questions early on about this program. I understand that it was sketchy at the beginning as to whether we would be able to offer this labour force to our producers. I hope you understand now how critical the seasonal agricultural worker program and the temporary foreign worker program are to our food supply.
This is a bit off-topic, but I just want to put this on your radar to see if there's anything that we can do. We have a lot of agricultural producers in the southern part of many of our ridings that have American borders. I have ranchers who have cattle on the Alberta side as well as on the Montana side, and some who have grain. They are having a really difficult time going back and forth to check cattle, feed animals and those types of things.
I know this isn't necessarily an immigration thing. However, I have spoken with my counterparts in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, and we all see agriculture as an essential service. They are having similar problems as they have that reciprocity. I'm wondering if it's on your radar or on the government's radar to address this issue, to have some sort of a permit or a process where agricultural producers who are an essential service can make that trip back and forth across the border.